Diary of a Shopkeeper, 31st March 2024

It was as long ago as 2006, according to a pundit on The Apprentice, that USB ports first appeared in cars. We’re behind the curve at K&G: it was only a year ago that we acquired a delivery van with modern technology such as USBs, Bluetooth, and heating. It still feels like luxury to drive around listening to music or podcasts via a phone connection. And, what’s more, being able to hear them. The old van, whose engine had a sound profile akin to a 1952 grey Fergie tractor, would have drowned out even Pavarotti at peak Nessun Dorma. So I happily headed off for the West Mainland this week, a stack of wine boxes in the back to deliver, and a promising podcast lined up to listen to.

The title was A Muslim & Jew Go There, with the presenters being respectively former Conservative cabinet minister Sayeeda Warsi and comedian and presenter David Baddiel. According to its official website, the podcast would be, ‘Covering topics from antisemitism in the Labour party and Islamophobia in the Conservative Party to debating concepts like ‘racism hierarchies’, ‘non-visible minorities’ and ‘victim olympics’, as well as tropes and stereotypes … this topical, often funny podcast will go there in a way others might not dare.’

From Kirkwall to Finstown I found the discussion fascinating. I’m a bit of a political anorak, so listening to well-informed, articulate debate – especially from participants not in thrall to any party line – was perfect. My enjoyment started to sour as I was passing Binscarth, during a discussion of George Galloway’s recent by-election victory, and who ‘led him into the house’ as tradition demands. Sayeeda Warsi said it has been Peter Bottomley, and David Baddiel suggested that ‘someone from the Alba party’ had also been involved. (Which is true, it was MP Neale Hanvey.) 

Baddiel went on, ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’m doing a political podcast here, I’ve never heard of the Alba party.’ He gave a laugh. ‘There’s a TV channel called Alba. It’s a Scottish party, right? Is that right?’

Warsi laughed too. ‘I didn’t know we had a member of the Alba party. I mean this is…this is terrible. Am I going to get pulled up for this? I didn’t know we had an Alba member of parliament.’

Baddiel continued, ‘Yeah, there’s an Alba member of parliament. Cause me and my son – this is a little bit of an insight – sometimes when we’re flicking through the channels we stop at the Alba channel because it’s in Gaelic, and we always we think, oh, that’s quite exciting’ – he gave a little laugh – ‘we’re going to hear a bit of Gaelic. So I noticed it was the Alba party.’

If I gained a ‘little bit of an insight’ from this exchange, it was indeed the disappointing one that two experienced political commentators didn’t know there were not just one but two Alba MPs in Westminster. That’s twice as many as the Green Party. But hey, Alba’s a Scottish party, right? So it doesn’t matter to people broadcasting from Southampton and London, even to supposed experts in ‘non-visible minorities.’

Later, Warsi asked whether Baddiel understood what he watched on BBC Alba. ‘They have subtitles!’ he replied. ‘You should watch it, because the documentaries they do are just amazing. They’re often about a man who lives in a shack somewhere in the Hebrides, and you can find out about his whole life on Alba.’

Is this really a healthy debate on the ‘tropes and stereotypes’ of life in the Highlands and Islands? No, but what do people like us, living in shacks on some distant island, really count for? Not much, in the world of Warsi and Baddiel.

For the record, I too am a fan of BBC Alba. Their coverage of writers like George Mackay Brown and Graeme Macrae Burnett, for example, is better than anything the English-language BBC has broadcast for many years. Also for the record, I carry no flag for the Alba party, but I do know they have two MPs. I am, as I said, a political anorak, and also know that neither of them was elected as such: they won elections for the SNP then jumped ship to Alba in 2021.

Sayeeda Warsi wasn’t elected at all. She lost in her only attempt, in 2005. Luckily for her, she was made a life peer two years later, and sits in the House of Lords as Baroness Warsi, legislating on much that affects our lives and our shacks.

The podcast discussed is readily available from all the usual podcast outlets. Read about BBC Alba’s literary programmes (some currently unavailable to view.).

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 4th April 2024. A new diary appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.